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Peter Nicholas, Katherine Doyle, Megan Lebowitz, and Courtney Kube at NBC News:

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is sparking fears among those who understand the inner workings of the Pentagon that he would convert the nonpartisan U.S. military into the muscular arm of his political agenda as he makes comments about dictatorship and devalues the checks and balances that underpin the nation’s two-century-old democracy. A circle of appointees independent of Trump’s political operation steered him away from ideas that would have pushed the limits of presidential power in his last term, according to books they’ve written and testimony given to Congress. Most were gone by the end. In a new term, many former officials worry that Trump would instead surround himself with loyalists unwilling to say no. Trump has raised fresh questions about his intentions if he regains power by putting forward a legal theory that a president would be free to do nearly anything with impunity — including assassinate political rivals — so long as Congress can’t muster the votes to impeach him and throw him out of office.

Now, bracing for Trump’s potential return, a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs. Those taking part in the effort told NBC News they are studying Trump’s past actions and 2024 policy positions so that they will be ready if he wins in November. That involves preparing to take legal action and send letters to Trump appointees spelling out consequences they’d face if they undermine constitutional norms. “We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to,” said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law.

Part of the aim is to identify like-minded organizations and create a coalition to challenge Trump from day one, those taking part in the discussions said. Some participants are combing through policy papers being crafted for a future conservative administration. They’re also watching the interviews that Trump allies are giving to the press for clues to how a Trump sequel would look. Other participants include Democracy Forward, an organization that took the Trump administration to court more than 100 times during his administration, and Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarian group. “We are preparing for litigation and preparing to use every tool in the toolbox that our democracy provides to provide the American people an ability to fight back,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward. “We believe this is an existential moment for American democracy and it’s incumbent on everybody to do their part.”

America’s commander-in-chief has vast powers at his disposal — some well-known, others not so much. Some lawmakers and pro-democracy advocates worry there may be nothing stopping a president from mobilizing the military to intervene in elections, police American streets or quash domestic protests. Wary of Trump’s staying power — he is running about even with President Joe Biden in the polls — Democratic lawmakers already known to be adversarial to Trump are working on a parallel track. Among the least-understood tools available to a president is the Insurrection Act. Vaguely worded, it gives a president considerable discretion in deciding what constitutes an uprising and when it is OK to deploy active-duty military in response, experts say.

[...] Trump’s vow to seek “retribution” on behalf of those he says have been “wronged” and “betrayed” has sparked fears that he would use presidential powers more broadly as a cudgel against political foes. Compounding the anxiety, he remarked at a Fox News town hall last month that he would be a “dictator” — though only on his first day in office for the purposes of closing the border and drilling for oil. He later posted on his social media site that he had made that remark “in a joking manner.” More recently, Trump told a Fox News town hall in Iowa that “I’m not going to have time for retribution.” Detractors aren’t buying it. “He’s a clear and present danger to our democracy,” said William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine and defense secretary in the Clinton administration who is not involved in the loose-knit network. “His support is solid. And I don’t think people understand what living in a dictatorship would mean.” Sent a list of questions about the fears recounted in this article, Trump’s campaign did not respond.

[...] That depends on who you ask. America’s democracy has proved remarkably resilient. It has endured a civil war and economic depression, political scandals and domestic protests. In Trump, though, some former officials see a man backed by a fervent movement that could shatter the American experiment.

NBC News reported Sunday that there are serious fears that if Donald Trump returns to 1600 next year, he'll use the military to crush dissent against his tyrannical regime by misusing the Insurrection Act.

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"average cat owner spends 3 years in prison" factoid actualy just statistical error. average owner spends 0 years in prison. Miette's mother, who kicked her body like the football and went to jail for One Thousand Years is an outlier adn should not have been counted

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Making a more concise post about this. A bill called HB 1291 is going to be considered by the Indiana House Committee on Judiciary. This bill would erase legal recognition and protections for transgender people in Indiana by laying out transphobic legal definitions for words like "woman" and "father" and by changing every instance the bill authors could find of the word "gender" in state legal code to "biological sex."

Here is a link to the list of who is in the House Committee on Judiciary. The chair, vice chair, and all of the majority members are Republicans. I am very scared, but I don't want us to go down without a fight.

Here is a call script for contacting each of the thirteen committee members:

"Hi, my name is [full name]. My address is [home address], and my phone number is [number]. I am reaching out to [rep] in regards to the upcoming House Bill 1291, which would remove legal recognition and protections for transgender people in the state of Indiana. This bill would ruin and end countless people's lives. It cannot be allowed to pass. Please oppose HB 1291. Thank you for listening."

If you are from a committee member's district, you can throw in a threat to not vote for them in the next election if they don't oppose this bill. You can check who your Indiana state house representative is here. Should be listed at the very bottom.

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"Israel expects support from western capitals because they have nearly as much to fear from a verdict against Israel as Israel itself. They have staunchly backed the killing spree, with the US and UK, in particular, sending weapons that are being used against the people of Gaza, making both potentially complicit.

According to a cable from the Israeli foreign ministry, leaked to the Axios website, Israel hopes that, given the difficulties of making a legal case in defence of its actions, diplomatic and political pressure on the court’s justices will win the day instead. ... Israel’s 'strategic goal' at the court, according to the leaked cable, is to dissuade the judges from making a determination that it is committing genocide. But more pressing is Israel’s need to prevent the Hague court from ordering an interim halt to the attack. ... The purpose of South Africa’s case is not to arbitrate what happens once Israel has annihilated the Palestinians of Gaza, as far too many observers appear to imagine. It is to stop Israel from annihilating the people of Gaza before it is too late. Based on strange logic, Israel’s supporters imply that the genocide charge is unwarranted because the real aim is not to exterminate the Palestinians of Gaza but to induce them to flee. ... The International Court of Justice must not adopt a wait-and-see approach, pondering whether Israel’s bombing campaign and siege lead to extermination or 'only' ethnic cleansing. That would strip international humanitarian law of all relevance.

If Israel and its western allies fail to bludgeon the court into submission, and South Africa’s case is accepted, it will not only be Israel in legal difficulties. 

A genocide ruling from the court will impose obligations on other states: both to refuse to assist in Israel’s genocide, such as by providing arms and diplomatic cover, and to sanction Israel should it fail to comply.

An interim order halting Israel’s attack will serve as a line in the sand. Once made, any state that fails to act on the injunction risks becoming complicit in genocide. 

That will put the West in a serious legal bind. After all, it has not just been turning a blind eye to the genocide in Gaza; it has been actively cheering it on and colluding in it. ... The truth is that a genocide ruling by the court will open up a can of worms for the West, and its readiness to accept that the provisions of international law apply to it too."

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As the United States continues to use its veto power to block the UN Security Council from calling for a ceasefire, war crimes and crimes against humanity are rife, and the risk of genocide is real. States have a positive obligation to prevent and punish genocide and other atrocity crimes. The ICJ’s examination of Israel’s conduct is a vital step for the protection of Palestinian lives, to restore trust and credibility in the universal application of international law, and to pave the way for justice and reparation for victims.

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International. ICJ hearings over Israel’s alleged breaches of the Genocide Convention a vital step to help protect Palestinian civilians

Amnesty referenced a November 2023 call by UN Experts to prevent genocide.

US obligations to prevent genocide are not dependent upon future determinations. The UN Experts point out that the obligation to prevent genocide extend beyond states: "[N]ot only States but also non-State actors such as businesses, must do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people. "

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Official map after the United Nations decision in November 29 1947 to partition Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem becoming an international city.

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This map shows the land that was newly developed in the United States from 2008 to 2019. The development may be for public or private uses — homes, commercial or industrial buildings, recreational facilities, or public buildings.

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Sanjana Karanth at HuffPost:

A senior Israeli official from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government admitted on Saturday that the Gaza Strip is a “ghetto” and that Israel must reduce the enclave’s Palestinian population ― the latest example of Israeli authorities plainly stating their goals for the future of Gaza and Palestinians. In an interview with Israeli Army Radio, ultranationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that his “demand” was for Gaza to stop being a “hotbed where 2 million people grow up on hatred and aspire to destroy the State of Israel.” He did not specify why Palestinian civilians in Gaza would aspire to destroy Israel. According to a translation by Haaretz, the Religious Zionism party chairman also said that Israel must occupy and resettle Gaza in order to regain security. “If we act strategically, they will emigrate and we will live there. We won’t let 2 million stay. With 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza, the ‘day after’ debate will be different,” Smotrich said, as translated by an Israel analyst with the nonprofit Crisis Group. “They want to leave, they’ve been living in a ghetto for 75 years.” Comparing the plight of Palestinians to the suffering of European Jews during the Nazi regime has been a taboo subject, though human rights organizations and scholars have drawn similarities between the two struggles, particularly after Oct. 7. Just days ago, South Africa launched a case at the top United Nations court accusing Israel of carrying out the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Earlier this month, prominent Russian American journalist and writer Masha Gessen was almost not awarded the prestigious Hannah Arendt prize in Germany after they published an essay in The New Yorker comparing Gaza to the Jewish ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe. “For the last seventeen years, Gaza has been a hyperdensely populated, impoverished, walled-in compound where only a small fraction of the population had the right to leave for even a short amount of time ― in other words, a ghetto,” they wrote in their Dec. 9 essay. “Not like the Jewish ghetto in Venice or an inner-city ghetto in America but like a Jewish ghetto in an Eastern European country occupied by Nazi Germany.” “Presumably, the more fitting term ‘ghetto’ would have drawn fire for comparing the predicament of besieged Gazans to that of ghettoized Jews,” they continued. “It also would have given us the language to describe what is happening in Gaza now. The ghetto is being liquidated.”

[...] This is not the first time Smotrich has spoken offensively of Palestinians. In March, the minister delivered a speech in Paris claiming that there is no Palestinian “nation,” “history” or “language.” In February, he called for a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank to be “erased” after Jewish settlers rampaged through it in response to a shooting attack that killed two Israelis. Immediately after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, he reportedly told fellow Cabinet members that “it’s time to be cruel,” even if it means killing hostages in Gaza in the process. But Smotrich is not the only Israeli official saying the quiet part out loud about Gaza. Several of the country’s lawmakers have made comments appearing to support a second Nakba (when Palestinians were expelled from their homes and land en masse 75 years ago) in Gaza in order to feel a sense of security after the war.

Israel Apartheid State's far-right fascist Financial Minister Bezalel Smotrich effectively called for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza in an interview with Israeli Army Radio over the weekend.

#means motive and opportunity

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that’s enough emotions for a whole year. ciao

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Source

All the while, more states are trying to legalize child labor each day, learning nothing of the consequences

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the solution for taking care of "unsightly" homeless people is to house us. that is the only solution. if you can't stand the look of someone living on the sidewalk, you shouldn't stand for them being put into that situation to begin with. housing us is the only answer.

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In his 1956 book The Marlinspike Sailor, marine illustrator Hervey Garrett Smith wrote that rope is “probably the most remarkable product known to mankind.” On its own, a stray thread cannot accomplish much. But when several fibers are twisted into yarn, and yarn into strands, and strands into string or rope, a once feeble thing becomes both strong and flexible—a hybrid material of limitless possibility. A string can cut, choke, and trip; it can also link, bandage, and reel. String makes it possible to sew, to shoot an arrow, to strum a chord. It’s difficult to think of an aspect of human culture that is not laced through with some form of string or rope; it has helped us develop shelter, clothing, agriculture, weaponry, art, mathematics, and oral hygiene. Without string, our ancestors could not have domesticated horses and cattle or efficiently plowed the earth to grow crops. If not for rope, the great stone monuments of the world—Stonehenge, the Pyramids at Giza, the moai of Easter Island—would still be recumbent. In a fiberless world, the age of naval exploration would never have happened; early light bulbs would have lacked suitable filaments; the pendulum would never have inspired advances in physics and timekeeping; and there would be no Golden Gate Bridge, no tennis shoes, no Beethoven’s fifth symphony.

“Everybody knows about fire and the wheel, but string is one of the most powerful tools and really the most overlooked,” says Saskia Wolsak, an ethnobotanist at the University of British Columbia who recently began a PhD on the cultural history of string. “It’s relatively invisible until you start looking for it. Then you see it everywhere.”

 —   The Long, Knotty, World-Spanning Story of String

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In a little-noticed October speech in Uganda, Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Mich., urged that nation to stand behind its new Anti-Homosexuality Act, which includes the death penalty.